The limits of Putin’s power

As Russia’s politicians go off for their summer break, political commentator Kirill Rogov takes a look at the latest opinion polls. His conclusion? Putin’s hardline policy towards the opposition is turning out to be counterproductive.

July seems a good time to draw some
conclusions about the current political season and attempt a forecast of the
one to come. If I were to sum it up in one sentence, I would say that the culmination
of ‘Operation Caretaker’, as planned four years ago, was not a success. Formally, Putin has returned to the Kremlin,
but without the mandate he enjoyed in his previous term as president. He is,
however, intent on ruling as if his support was as strong as before, and this
is the main factor behind Russia’s unrolling political crisis.

The crisis has not yet reached its acute
phase. The situation is reminiscent of the moment when an illness might still
be taken for a slight indisposition, but the number of white blood cells is
already indicating something more serious. The patient, meanwhile, misled by the mildness
of his symptoms, is trying to carry on as usual. Let’s take a look at the
symptoms of this crisis, basing our analysis on more or less objective data and
facts.

Popularity
vs. oil

The first of these is a steady decline in
Putin’s popularity among Russians. During the 2008-2009 crisis, Putin’s
‘approval balance’ (the gap between the ‘approves’ and ‘disapproves’, according
to Levada Centre figures) predictably fell from a maximum of 78 points to 55
(April 2009). It then rose again and steadied at around 60 points. But another
steep slide began at the start of 2011: by March Putin had a 40 point balance,
and a second slide occurred at the end of the summer, ending up at 27 points in
December. In other words, in the course of a year the balance fell by 50%. And
after a slight pre-election peak at the start of 2012, the figure dropped once
more to 30% by June.

'The crisis has not yet reached its acute phase. The
situation is reminiscent of the moment when an illness might still be taken for
a slight indisposition, but the number of white blood cells is already
indicating something more serious.'

Putin’s ratio of approval/disapproval stands
in fact at around 65:35. This would be an excellent result for the president of
any democratic country, but it is unacceptable for a ‘Tsar’ – an unassailable and
all-powerful leader with an unshakeable mandate. Putin has in effect lost his
mandate.

Another important point: this happened
without any of the economic factors that usually explain such a fall in the
index. Oil prices in 2011 were at a historic peak (the annual rate higher than
in 2008). The inflation rate was falling rapidly. The standard of living index rose steeply
from March 2011 (Levada Centre figures) and by autumn had almost reached
pre-crisis levels. At the same time, however, public approval of the political
system, governmental institutions, the general state of the country and Putin personally
went into a noticeable decline. This situation, as some analysts have already
noted, is practically unique since such data collection began at the start of
the 1990s. It suggests that we are witnessing some fundamental trend, and that
Russians no longer associate economic stability with the specifics of Putin’s
political regime.

The
decline of the ruling party

The second symptom of impending crisis was
the parliamentary election of December 2011. This was marked by two
mini-crises, and not one, as is generally thought. The first of these was the
fact that in areas inhabited by half of Russia’s population, ‘United Russia’ won
less than 48% of the vote. According to the official (i.e. tweaked) figures, in
32 regions United Russia’s share was less than 40% (and in 16 regions less than
35%).

These regions were quite different from one another, and included both
large industrialised areas and the non-Black Earthagriculturalbelt,
traditionally a Communist stronghold. The list also includes Moscow, where
United Russia’s real share of the vote was less than 30%.

'The main thing is that the local power structures were
unable, or unwilling, to secure a satisfactory outcome for United Russia.'

In this case it hardly matters how much the
results were falsified. The main thing is that the local power structures were
unable, or unwilling, to secure a satisfactory outcome for United Russia. And this was a powerful blow to the political
model of authoritarianism with one dominant party that was established in 2007.
This model is considered by political scientists to be the most stable,
institutionalised if you like, type of authoritarianism, the classic example
being Mexico, where the Institutional Revolutionary Party
has been in power for almost 70 years. United Russia should have presented
itself as the institutionalised embodiment of Putin’s power vertical, exercising
control over the regions and consolidating the loyal elites. The election
demonstrated that this model had been rejected by at least half of the
population, and not just ordinary voters but regional elites as well.

The
battle for Moscow

The third manifestation of approaching
crisis was the Moscow protest rallies. To retain a formal majority in parliament,
the Kremlin had to resort to an unprecedented level of falsification of
election results in the capital. The
widespread protest activity triggered by this can be looked at in two ways.

Firstly, it can be seen as a conflict
between Vladimir Putin and the group generally known as the chattering classes.
Or one could call them simply sophisticates. Either way, a broad intellectual
elite, a well educated and westernised (in terms of their lifestyle) urban
population, spoke out loudly and clearly against Putin’s political system. The
consequences of this conflict will be more serious than is generally thought.
The problem for the regime is that this group’s understanding of the situation
in Russia today, and the political agenda it developed during the protests of
the winter and spring, will inevitably attract new followers and increase its
popularity.

Putin can appoint Igor Kholmanskikh, a tank
factory foreman and candidate chess master, as his presidential envoy to the
Ural Mountains region, and Vladimir Medinsky,
who has been accused of plagiarism, as Minister for Culture, but they will clearly
be unable to come up with a view of Russia today that can compare with that
formulated by the intellectuals.

'The Moscow protests reflected another conflict: that
between Putin’s cronies (most of them his Petersburg buddies) and Moscow. This
is not only a quarrel between Putin and the chattering classes, but hostility
towards the president among Moscow’s elites.'

The regime is incapable of putting forward a
vision for the future acceptable to a majority of the Russian public: on the
contrary, it is having to retreat into the past (in the hope of retaining the
loyalty of the ‘provinces’), which will only boost the popularity of the
opposition’s agenda.

But the Moscow protests reflected another
conflict: that between Putin’s cronies (most of them his Petersburg buddies)
and Moscow. This is not only a quarrel between Putin and the chattering
classes, but hostility towards the president among Moscow’s elites, who lost
their political protection when former mayor Yury Luzhkov was forced to resign.
You could argue that a mere 0.5 – 1% of Muscovites attend rallies, but over
half of the rest express support or
loyalty to the protesters, and 2/3 of Muscovites are critical of the new legal
restrictions on protest action. This conflict, like the previous one, is
unlikely to be settled in the foreseeable future. The battle for Moscow
declared by Putin in his pre-election speech at Luzhniki is following the exact
template of its historical Napoleonic model: Putin has taken Moscow, but lost
the battle for the capital.

The ‘reaction’
and its consequences

The new assault on the media; legislation, full
of Stalinist rhetoric, against demonstrators and NGOs; preparations for a major
political trial of opposition figures à la Lukashenko after the events of 6th
May – all this comes under the heading of ‘reaction’.

Functionally, ‘reaction’ is a normal phase
of a political crisis related to the gradual loss of a regime’s legitimacy. Obvious
signs of weakness in a regime create grounds for a split in the ranks of the
elite – support for the regime ceases to be a sure-fire bet. ‘Reaction’ is the
response of a regime that needs to demonstrate to its elites its strength and
total control of the apparatus of repression.

But ‘reaction’ is a big risk. If it is
insufficiently convincing, it will only nurture unrest and panic amongst the
elites. And both too little and too much use of force can have an equally
negative effect.

In the first place, the elite is likely to
have an ambivalent attitude to a ‘hard line’ Kremlin offensive. One notable
event of the last few days was the news that United Russia MPs were forced to
put their individual signatures to the Stalinist anti-NGO bill. It seems that
such demonstrations of a ‘hard line’ caused some panic even in Putin’s supposed
front line troops. There are obviously not enough people willing to swell the
numbers of the ‘Magnitsky list’ (the
list of officials, implicated in the death of lawyer Sergey Magnitsky in 2009,
who may face entry bans to the US and EU countries) to guarantee the success of
this policy.

'A majority of Russians (50-60%) regard Putin as their
legitimate president. At the same time, a majority believe his legitimacy is
limited: in contrast to the situation in the last decade, people [ ] expect him
to observe certain rules.'

A majority of Russians (50-60%) regard Putin as their
legitimate president. At the same time, a majority believe his legitimacy is
limited: in contrast to the situation in the last decade, people [ ] expect him
to observe certain rules.

In the second place, research by the Levada
Centre into Russians’ attitudes to protest and repressive measures against it produces
the following picture. On the one hand, the majority do not approve of the
protesters’ radical slogans, including their demand for Putin’s resignation
(this demand is supported by 20-30% of the public). On the other hand, however,
opinion is fairly evenly divided about the protesters themselves, with about
40% of the public approving of them, and another 40% disapproving. And when the
question is put in a more abstract form – about the right of the protesters to
protest – they are supported by a clear majority. And vice versa: only about
30% of Russians approve of repressive measures being taken against the
protesters, whereas 45% disapprove of them.

So the likelihood of Putin’s ‘reactive’
strategy being unsuccessful is very great, since a hard line policy towards the
opposition will undermine his legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

This analysis of attitudes to the
protesters brings us back to the idea with which I began this article. A
majority of Russians (50-60%) regard Putin as their legitimate president. At
the same time, a majority believe his legitimacy is limited: in contrast to the
situation in the last decade, people are unwilling to delegate their political
rights to him, but instead expect him to observe certain rules. It is
significant that a relative majority of those polled (38% to 36%) approve of
the idea of limiting the president’s powers and term of office.

The
battle for the elite and the battle for the centre

If we summarise current public attitudes to
Putin and his regime, the picture looks approximately like this. Over the last twelve
to eighteen months the core of diehard Putin supporters has shrunk significantly,
and now accounts for 15-20% of the population. The proportion of hardcore
oppositionists is roughly the same (15%). Another 15-20% share the anti-Putin
mood to some extent, and form a support group for the hard core. The group who
express conditional support for Putin is much larger, at 40-45%.

This support is, however, strictly
conditional: the protesters’ demand for Putin’s resignation may have the
support of only one Russian in four, but 40% of those surveyed show less than
complete loyalty to Putinism (42% agree that United Russia is the ‘Party of
Swindlers and Thieves’, and 38% support the demand for new parliamentary
elections).

'Vladimir Putin believes that Mikhail Gorbachev’s big
mistake was to make concessions (and that he fell from power as a result).
Political analysts, on the other hand, tend to think that his mistake was that
he conceded too late and then too little.'

Vladimir Putin believes that Mikhail Gorbachev’s
big mistake was to make concessions (and that he fell from power as a result).
Political analysts, on the other hand, tend to think that his mistake was that
he conceded too late and then too little. But this is a nuance too far for Vladimir
Putin, who is convinced that his hard line policy is the only correct one: no
concessions, complete confidence and a show of power.

The problem is that this policy is making
Putin’s regime even tougher, and so less acceptable both to those who are
unhappy with it but still recognise his legitimacy, and to those who are still
loyal to Putin or take a neutral view. By voting for Putin, people were voting
for a continuation of the status quo, not for a hardening of the regime. They
would rather have Putin than the uncertainty that would follow his departure,
but at some point this uncertainty might begin to look like a lesser evil than
keeping the ‘tough’ Putin in power.

In other words, a
hard line may be effective in the short term as a way of keeping the elites in
line, but it will also narrow Putin’s ‘conditional support’ zone and increase the number of those who
would support a demand for his resignation. When this trend can no longer be
ignored (and by autumn the numbers in these two groups will probably level
out), the pressure on the elites may well become counterproductive.

A version of this article appeared in Russian in Vedomosti

About the author

Kirill Rogov is Senior Research Fellow at the Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, Moscow.

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